The Thanksgiving story most of us hear is about friendship and unity. And that's what Sarah Josepha Hale had on her mind when she sat down to write a letter to President Lincoln in 1863, deep into the Civil War. Hale had already spent years campaigning for a national day of thanksgiving, using her platform as editor of one the country's most widely-read magazines and writing elected officials to argue that Americans urgently needed a national story. But she'd gotten nowhere – until now.

Five days after reading her letter, Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday. At the time, no one was talking about Pilgrims and Native Americans. But that too would change.

Today on the show: a Thanksgiving story you may not have heard, how it happened, and what it leaves out.

What is it, why do we have it, and why hasn't it changed? Born from a rushed, fraught, imperfect process, the origins and evolution of the Electoral College might surprise you and make you think differently about not only this upcoming presidential election, but our democracy as a whole.

For the people who were there when it was invented in small clubs and basement parties in Chicago in the 1980s, house music was a force of nature. Four decades later, its impact is bigger than ever.

Monopoly has been one of the best-selling board games in the United States for nearly a century now. And sure, maybe it's just a board game. But author Mary Pilon says Monopoly is much more than that.

Racial covenants made it illegal for Black people to live in white neighborhoods. Now they're illegal, but you might still have one on your home's deed. And they're hard to remove.

During the pandemic, mutual aid groups helped cover where social services fell short. One such group in San Diego was created after seeing connections between homelessness and racial injustice.